Astronomy 4: Stars
Announcements
June 10:- There will be a review session for the final at 7pm on Tuesday, June 13. It will be held in ISB 126 (not the usual ISB 165, and not ISB 356 which was what I announced in class).
- A review sheet for the final is here.
- Help for setting up Starry Night on Macs (with thanks to Cybil Vidal and the publisher's help desk):
Download the Setup Files and and they should automatically unzip (extract).
Next, to access the GO directory, CTRL CLICK the icon for the Starry Night program and select "Show Package Contents". Open the Contents Folder, then Resources and then Sky Data to find the Go folder.
Move the folder 001_observing Projects downloaded from the site to the Go folder.
If the Starry Night software is open when the projects folder is added to Go the program will need to be relaunched before the projects can be viewed in the go menu.
- The fourth quiz is scheduled for Thursday 6/1. A review sheet for it is here.
- Observing Night -- Wednesday, May 31, 8:30pm at the Porter Squiggle. We'll have 2 or 3 telescopes, and quite a few pairs of binoculars. Jupiter, Saturn and Mars should all be visible, as well as the Moon, and a variety of interesting stars. 3 smorgasbord points.
- There were quality control problems with homework #7. The "Think About Questions" listed for Chapter 20 were actually for Chapter 21, and the Extra Credit problem are from Chapter 21 not Chapter 19. A corrected version is now on the Homework Assignments page.
- Help for setting up the Starry Night Observing Projects (with thanks to Aaron Masters):
The smorgasbord Starry Night projects require extra files that need to be downloaded from the textbook website. This is noted on page vii in the Introduction of the Observing Projects Using Starry Night Backyard and Deep Space Explorer text, though there's a typo in the URL listed there. The download itself is hidden further down that page where it says "Starry Night Backyard and Deep Space Explorer Exercises." Here's a direct link. As described at that link the .zip file available there needs to be extracted to the program's "Go" directory for it to be available in the program.
- The third quiz is scheduled for Thursday 5/18. A review sheet for it is here.
- In addition to their talk tonight at Bookshop Santa Cruz, Joel Primack and Nancy Abrams will be speaking tomorrow night (May 9) at 8:00pm at the UCSC Media Theater. The title of the talk is "View from the Center of the Universe"
- Question 2 of Homework 4 is now "extra-credit". And as a hint, remember that the question is how much more power do you radiate alive (with a temperature of 310K) than a corpse with a temperature of 300K radiates?
- Quiz 2 will be held Thursday, May 4. Here's review sheet for it. Remember that about 80% of the points on a quiz are non-math questions, so make sure you study concepts as well as math.
- There was a very wide range of grades on Quiz 1; two people got perfect scores, median was 40 and the low score was 10.
- Solutions to the first homework are on the Homework Assignments page.
- The first quiz is on Thursday 4/20 (in class). Here's a review sheet for it.
- The first "smorgasbord project" suggestion, quarter-long star gazing project, is here.
- Section assignments are here.
- Today's lecture notes are in the lecture notes section.
- E-mail me (dewey@astro.ucsc.edu) if you need a permission code.
- The discussion sections which are actually still open are Tuesday 7-8pm, Wednesday 7-8pm, and Friday 1-2pm.
- The "Problem of the Day" which we didn't quite get to in class is here. Do as much as you can before Thursday, but there'll be some time in class to work on it. Some questions to think about as you're doing it...
- Which do you think would be closest to the right size for the model Earth: a grapefruit, a tennis ball, a small ball bearing or grain of table salt?
- f you put the Sun in on the desk at the front this classroom, which do you think would be a good place for the Earth: in the first row of seats, somewhere in the plaza outside the classroom, near the intersection of High and Bay, or somewhere in Watsonville?
- If you put the Sun in on the desk at the front this classroom, which do you think would be a good place for Alpha Centauri: somewhere in the plaza outside the classroom, near the intersection of High and Bay, somewhere in San Diego, or somewhere in northern Chile?
About the course
This course takes a close up look at stars from an astronomer's perspective. Topics include...
- Observing stars from your backyard.
- The physics of stars and the nature of light.
- Nuclear fusion in stars.
- A close up look at the Sun (our neighborhood star).
- Star formation and planet formation.
- Stellar evolution and stellar death.
- Neutron stars and black holes.
- The early universe and the formation of the first stars and galaxies.
There are two lectures per week (10:00-11:45 am in Thimann 3) and one section per week, and the class carries IN and Q credit. There will be weekly problems sets and biweekly quizzes as well as a final exam and numerous extra-credit opportunities.